The size of cake you’ll need depends on how big a slice you want to give each guest. The standard piece of wedding cake is 1″x2″. That’s for a piece of cake 3-6″ high. This wedding industry standard assumes that your guests are going to get a token piece of wedding cake and that you’ll be serving other desserts.

But for a small wedding, the wedding cake is often more than symbolic; it’s the main dessert. If that’s the case for your wedding, you might want to increase the size of each slice to 1½”x2″, the standard “party size” slice of cake.

Sometimes, hosts feel the need to serve extra-large “generous” or “event” size slices that are 2″x2″. That’s a big piece of cake. Don’t feel that you need to give everyone a piece this size in order to be generous. Chances are, hardly anyone will eat a piece this big. In fact, chances are a good number of people won’t eat a whole wedding or party-sized piece. A better strategy is to serve wedding or party-size slices and have extra servings for the people who want seconds. (There’s something warm and homey about being able to give a guest a second helping of cake, something that’s a lot more likely at a small wedding than a large wedding.)

The chart below gives the number of servings you can expect to get from various sizes of round and square cakes, for both wedding and party-size slices. Select a size or a combination of cake layer sizes that will provide enough servings for your guests.

Remember, too, that you might want to set aside a small top layer or at least a couple of slices in the freezer to save for your first anniversary.